Pain.
It was the first thing Ha-Joon felt after tumbling through the swirling blue gate.
His vision was a blur—colors twisting in unnatural shapes, the air thick and buzzing with static. Then a sudden impact, like being slammed against cold stone, knocked the breath from his lungs.
He groaned, coughing dust from his throat as he lay face-down on rocky ground.
Everything was silent.
Too silent.
---
When he finally opened his eyes, he found himself beneath a sky that defied logic—deep purple and streaked with red lightning. There was no sun, yet the entire realm glowed with an eerie, unnatural light.
Towering jagged mountains loomed on the horizon, and strange twisted trees hovered mid-air above floating islands. The air smelled metallic, like blood and burning ozone.
Ha-Joon sat up slowly, his arms shaking.
"W-Where… am I?"
He looked around—nothing human, no buildings, no signs, no people. The gate was gone. No way back. Just alien terrain stretching endlessly in every direction.
Panic surged in his chest. His heart pounded.
This wasn't a game. This wasn't a dream.
He had been thrown into another world.
---
The first roar came only ten minutes later.
A deep, guttural howl from beyond the hill to his left. Ha-Joon froze, spinning around—and that's when he saw it.
A massive four-legged creature, like a grotesque wolf fused with reptilian skin, stood hunched atop a ridge. Its eyes glowed amber. Saliva dripped from its open maw, sizzling where it hit the ground.
It saw him.
And charged.
---
Ha-Joon ran.
He didn't know where to go—just away. His legs screamed with effort as he sprinted down a slope of black stone, nearly slipping as loose gravel scattered under his sneakers.
He ducked behind a large jagged rock, panting, trembling. The roar grew louder.
He reached for something—anything—and found a broken tree branch, sharp at one end.
His only weapon.
The creature pounced.
Ha-Joon thrust the stick forward instinctively.
It stabbed into the creature's shoulder, not deeply—but enough to make it snarl in pain.
It swiped with its claws, slashing his arm.
He cried out, stumbling backward. His vision blurred with blood and tears.
He was going to die.
---
And then, in the moment before impact, a sudden ding rang in his mind like a chime echoing across the void.
> [SYSTEM DETECTED]
Unique Signature Identified.
Initiating Emergency Sync...
Host: JUNG HA-JOON
Realm: ENDLESS TIER 0
Status: MORTAL | UNAWAKENED | POWERLESS
Danger Level: LETHAL
Ha-Joon stared at the translucent screen floating before him, unable to blink.
> Skill: Beginner Survival Protocol Activated
[Passive Skill Acquired: Danger Sense]
[Basic Combat Skill: Improvised Weapon Handling Lv.1]
[Pain Resistance Lv.1 Activated]
[Awakening Path: STARTED]
First Task: Survive
Then time seemed to slow.
He felt it—his heart, his breath, his focus sharpened. The monster lunged again, but this time, Ha-Joon moved—not with strength, but instinct.
He rolled to the side. The creature's claws scraped stone.
He jabbed the stick again—this time right in the eye.
The beast screamed.
And collapsed.
---
Ha-Joon lay there, panting, coated in sweat, blood, and dirt. The stick fell from his hand. His arm throbbed from the slash wound, but he was alive.
Then came another notification.
> [Enemy Defeated: Tier 0 Beast – Fanged Maw]
Reward:
+10 EXP
+1 Random Drop Acquired
You Have Gained: Low-Grade Beast Core (Tier 0)
> New Skill: [Basic Energy Absorption Lv.1]
Energy can now be absorbed from cores to restore stamina and boost growth.
He blinked, unable to process what he was reading.
"This is… a system?" he whispered.
Just like in games. But real. Too real.
He opened a new panel with a thought, and the system responded:
---
[Status Screen – Jung Ha-Joon]
Age: 18
Realm: Endless Tier 0
Race: Human
Class: None
Level: 1
Experience: 10/100
HP: 35/100
Stamina: 47/100
Mana: 0
Skills:
• Improvised Weapon Handling Lv.1
• Pain Resistance Lv.1
• Danger Sense Lv.1
• Energy Absorption Lv.1
---
Ha-Joon trembled.
His heart was still racing, but this time with something else: a spark of hope.
He wasn't defenseless anymore.
---
That night, he found a cave—a narrow crevice barely wide enough for him to squeeze into. He crawled in, shivering, blood drying on his skin. There was no warmth, no blanket, no safety.
But he was alive.
The beast's core glowed faintly in his hand. He followed the system's prompt and pressed it to his chest.
It dissolved into light.
> [Core Absorbed: +5 HP / +5 Stamina Restored]
You feel slightly stronger.
He sighed in relief.
Then, in the dimness, he looked up toward the cracked purple sky.
"Why… me?"
There was no answer.
Only the quiet wind howling through the alien cliffs.
---
Back on Earth, 29 days had passed.
In Seoul, the government had officially declared the existence of rifts and dungeons as a Global Crisis. The Hunter Control Authority was working to register thousands of newly Awakened citizens. Every day, more dungeons appeared across the planet—some stable, others volatile and dangerous.
The Jung family had stopped watching the news.
---
Mrs. Jung still set the table for four.
Mr. Jung went to work like a ghost.
Ha-Rin no longer smiled at her customers.
Even as the world changed dramatically, their world had already ended the day Ha-Joon vanished.
---
But far away, in an unreachable realm…
Ha-Joon was still alive.
He was weak.
Alone.
In pain.
But something inside him refused to break.
---
> [System Notification: Due to Host's Survival Against Fatal Odds, New Trait Acquired]
Trait Gained: Endurance of the Damned (Passive)
You will survive longer than logic allows. You will not die until your story is finished.
---
He didn't know it yet.
But this was only Day 1 of a journey that would last over 60 trillion years.